OK, so I admit I'm behind the times since the DVD rentals dried up and retail stores went out of business. I haven't kept up with the movies' transition away from physical media. I want to buy (not rent) some movie classics for a 10 hour flight to play on my iPhone.

What are the best places to purchase online? I checked Netflix and it seems they will play on iPhone but it seems like it's only for rentals streaming in real time , I'm assuming you can't download & keep the movie to your hard drive indefinitely. And of course there's no way I'd be able to stream on a flight...

I found some movies that I want in iTunes & I see that you can buy them there. But what other options are there that will sell me movies to load into iTunes, that will sync & play on my iPhone?

icedsushi wrote:OK, so I admit I'm behind the times since the DVD rentals dried up and retail stores went out of business. I haven't kept up with the movies' transition away from physical media. I want to buy (not rent) some movie classics for a 10 hour flight to play on my iPhone.

What are the best places to purchase online? I checked Netflix and it seems they will play on iPhone but it seems like it's only for rentals streaming in real time , I'm assuming you can't download & keep the movie to your hard drive indefinitely. And of course there's no way I'd be able to stream on a flight...

I found some movies that I want in iTunes & I see that you can buy them there. But what other options are there that will sell me movies to load into iTunes, that will sync & play on my iPhone?

maybe just for the hell of it trawl through some of the older ones they have on iTunes - they have some classics - sometimes it's a nice opportunity to watch some of those ones you always meant to see, or watched 20 years ago

but wouldn't any 10 hour flight these days have a decent inflight system? Last time I did it about 2 years ago I caught up with some good films I hadn't seen. Guess it would depend on the airline, but Qantas at least used to have all their programs online to see what will be on beforehand.

BTW - even when you rent on iTunes doesn't it download anyway and just not work after 48 hours or something?

Styles Bitchly wrote:How in the heck can you watch a feature length movie on an iPhone....and actually enjoy it?

Should be a better experience than a preselected movie on those little drop down airplane screens which happens to also be a movie I don't want to see.

Forge. wrote:maybe just for the hell of it trawl through some of the older ones they have on iTunes - they have some classics - sometimes it's a nice opportunity to watch some of those ones you always meant to see, or watched 20 years ago

Yeah there are a few movies I figured I would buy because I might see them more than once. Fight Club was one of them which you can buy on there (no rent option). It looks like you have the option to buy most of these through iTunes, I was just wondering if iTunes has become the only option for actually buying download movies to watch them whenever you want. It seems like all the other ones, Netflix, etc are rental only. I don't need to buy that many, just a few classics that I'd rather buy instead of rent multiple times. If iTunes is the only option I'll just use iTunes. I'm just surprised that in the day of digital downloads, so far I can only find one convenient place to buy a movie & play it on my iPhone, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. With google, I found this one but seems strange they won't show you any prices until you sign up?

Forge. wrote:but wouldn't any 10 hour flight these days have a decent inflight system? Last time I did it about 2 years ago I caught up with some good films I hadn't seen. Guess it would depend on the airline, but Qantas at least used to have all their programs online to see what will be on beforehand.

The international flights I've been on had just the 2 or 3 preselected movies that you can either watch with everyone else at the same time or not, no personal selection of movies or anything.

Forge. wrote:BTW - even when you rent on iTunes doesn't it download anyway and just not work after 48 hours or something?

Apparently with iTunes, they last 30 days until the time you hit the play button and then you can watch it as much as you want within that 24 hours. Maybe renting multiple times or having a membership is the way of the future though. The movies do take up about 2GB of space in non-HD resolution, so I can see how that would add up. Since most DVD rentals pretty much went away last year it's gotten me actually going to the real movie theater , hadn't really bothered to check out what are the best online options.